Litchfield said he has already reported the vulnerability he discovered to Oracle and "thought they would have fixed it by now."

Litchfield -- whose arm was bandaged due to a mild shark bite from a great white shark sustained while photographing underwater from a protective cage -- emphasized during his talk that Oracle has shown "marked improvement" in holding down vulnerabilities found in its database versions over the past two years.

Still, the recent push from Anonymous to break into databases means that security managers need to "understand how hackers break in," Litchfield said.